22nd August 2011

Northamptonshire vs Middlesex Betting: Londoners can get their title charge back on track in Northampton

It’s a big week in the second division of the LV= County Championship as well as the top two square off at Wantage Road in a match which will go a long way to deciding the fate of the title and quite possibly promotion too when leaders Northamptonshire take on second placed Middlesex in a match beginning on Tuesday. Two other matches begin on Tuesday and they see Derbyshire travelling to Essex and Leicestershire hosting Surrey at Grace Road.

There’s only one place to focus though and that is Wantage Road. Northamptonshire come into this match off the back of a good win over Derbyshire last time out but they’ll be missing a few players here. Jack Brooks is still struggling with his back injury so he misses out as do Mal Loye and Ben Howgego while Niall O’Brien is on international duty with Ireland. David Murphy will have the gloves and Rob Newton will open with Stephen Peters.

Middlesex slipped up in the race for promotion last week when they went down to Kent at Canterbury so a win for them in this one is probably more of a necessity than for their opponents. Like their opponents they too have some absentees to get over here. Captain Neil Dexter will miss out with a nasty sounding finger injury while Steven Finn is on England duty. Chris Rogers will skipper the side in Dexter’s absence.

Northants are still a relatively young squad and at some point in this title run in I expect them to slip up. In Rogers, Dalrymple, Newman, Murtagh and Collymore among others the Panthers have experienced players who know what it’s like to push hard for promotion and I expect those senior players to get Middlesex over the line in what could be 4 epic days of cricket at the Northampton ground.

Back Middlesex to beat Northamptonshire for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Skybet